A lot will also depend on how big or small of an area you're trying to light, and on what cameras, with what art direction etc. A lot of the DoPs work is really the provence of the Production Designer who can really make or break you. As for lighting, I rarely find it possible to give a broad usage of lights, but rather for specific shots/scene based on what one has. Obviously, a few Red Heads and Dedos can't quite lite up Tesla's lab in a wide shot....

Let me add: one thing you should know about Wally is that he likes to keep some things very brightly and others very dark (use of very deep and rich black tones). Still though, he lights to maintain detail in even the darkest shadows.

Im interested in how he creates such natural looking light on the talent. their faces look so evenly lit especially, i like the naturalistic look to it.

Well, again, that's pretty vague and doesn't really give anyone much to tell you. You want them to look natural like they haven't been lit? I'm not even sure that Pfister's style is like that. And I'm not sure if what you're going for is "evenly lit." By 'evenly lit' do you mean high key? It may be difficult to achieve evenly lit, naturalistic lighting with the lights you've got...it sounds like you've got hard lights with no diffusion which could get ugly and look very 'lit'...But again, I'm not sure if that's really what Pfister does very often so maybe if you can post a clip from youtube that you like then we can begin to give you advice.

Well, again, that's pretty vague and doesn't really give anyone much to tell you. You want them to look natural like they haven't been lit? I'm not even sure that Pfister's style is like that. And I'm not sure if what you're going for is "evenly lit." By 'evenly lit' do you mean high key? It may be difficult to achieve evenly lit, naturalistic lighting with the lights you've got...it sounds like you've got hard lights with no diffusion which could get ugly and look very 'lit'...But again, I'm not sure if that's really what Pfister does very often so maybe if you can post a clip from youtube that you like then we can begin to give you advice.

I think my jargon is lacking, so my explanation us a bit vague, are there any sites i can use to improve it? Your right the light i have give a very lit look, apart from scrim and a light box, are there any other-ways to soften it? a friend of mne suggested lighting nets. the look I am going for is

Scrims and nets won't soften your light, they will just cut down the amount of light you're getting from a unit.

To soften the light you need to put some sort of diffusion in front of the light like a silk or some diff gel (250, 260, Hampshire, etc.). Also putting a Chimera on a Redhead would help.

Yeah diffusion gel is pretty much a must at the very least. If I were you I'd look into getting either 4x4 frames with diffusion gel on them, or even larger frames like 8x8 or 12x12 to put big silks on, so that you can cover entire windows or soften the hell out of your light.

I find that when you are working with very limited resources and crew, I like to use coves, you take a piece of show card and bend it into a cove, holding it togehter with paper tape, it makes for a nice, semi-controled source that gives you a very nice, soft light. You can also tape some bleached or unbleached muslin to the card and it is even nicer.

guys, I had same kind of question in lighting category of the forum but no one replied... I understand what the OP is going for.. In Dark Knight/Inception if you look at the actors in most scenes it seems like they're naturally lit without any external lights cos there' always shadows on their faces so the look is extremely natural and gives you that feel.. to give you an idea what the OP is going for here are more examples:

No, it's not always from the side - look at some of the long handheld dialogue scenes in "The Prestige", some of those have a large soft toplight so the camera is free to move nearly 360 degrees. The underground garage for Batman in "The Dark Knight" is lit with that huge ceiling of soft light that you see in-camera, just augment sometimes with an eyelight or something. The top floor dinner party scene in "The Dark Knight" where the Joker threatens Rachel and drops her out the window is also soft top-lit.

Pfister likes contrast, mood, and elegant simplicity. Sometimes that's easy, sometimes that's hard, sometimes you can use available light, sometimes you have to create it all from scratch but make it look like available light. That means studying real light in nature and deconstructing it in your head so you can recreate it as necessary -- in direction, contrast, hardness or softness, etc.

Simplicity is generally elegant-looking, uncluttered and dramatic -- and sometimes in a real room you have too many sources of light, so one of your jobs as a DP is to reduce the number of sources and simplify. Pfister will sometimes create a strong source of light for a room, to which any additional light he adds is subservient so it doesn't compete for attention or dilute the dramatic effect of a single source, but when someone steps out of that source or is backlit by it, then he might add an underexposed soft light that catches the eyes so you can still see the expressions of the actor. Since he's dealing with a lot of moody situations where the light on the face is falling off into darkness, he is careful to use eyelights when necessary to keep the performance alive.